How to Use A Boning Knife

Lisa Flynn: Well Chris, based on the introduction of our boning knife, you’re going to do some demonstrations here but I think the key thing to know it on this knife is the flexibility of it Christopher Koetke: You see how flexible that knife is? That is really, really important when you’re doing various different things with meat because it allows you to work around various bones, etcetera; that is a very important feature. Lisa Flynn: Well, and the blade is 5 inches long and it has also kind of a unique shape which allows you to get around bones of all sorts Christopher Koetke: Exactly, this is very much the traditional shape of a butcher knife; and as you’re going to see in a little bit, that it exactly what we need to cut around the bones like you said. Lisa Flynn: Well, let’s start with removing the silver skin from the pork tenderloin Christopher Koetke: Sure, very simply we’re going to use the boning knife and what’s nice here, that nice tip on there, we’re going to poke through underneath the silver skin, draw the knife back and at this point, we’re going to lift up the silver skin and whole of the silver skin at the same time as we slice with the knife and off comes this silver skin Lisa Flynn: And it’s really easy. Okay next, we’re going to demonstrate how to remove the bones and the skin from fish; and from this example we’re using red snapper. Christopher Koetke: That’s right, we have a fillet of red snapper and we’re going to begin by cutting away the bones that’s at the inside, the bones and a little bit of belly so, once again, just very simply cut like this with the knife and because that knife is flexible, it allows you to get right in, underneath that little bit of belly and cut it off just like that, look at how simple that is. And again, you have to have a flexible knife that allows you if it doesn’t work, you’re basically going to take the knife and then you cut towards the cutting board, and then notice I’m going to take the knife and just sort of turn it as I’m cutting into the fish so that the knife now is flat against the cutting board and I’m pressing it on the cutting board, again flexible blade is important, I’m going to use my fingers and hold on to the back here and very simply saw underneath that fillet; saw, saw, saw and off comes the skin and now I have this very nice fillet left over. Lisa Flynn: Well in this application we’re going to be sautéing chicken breast, obviously on the cooked chops but we’re going to finish off in the oven. Christopher Koetke: That’s right, we started to do here is basically in a hot pan and we take in the chicken breasts and we just sautéed them on one side so that, look at that, you see a beautiful browning; now at this point we’re going to take this and we’re going to go ahead and put on in at 400 degree oven for about 8 to 10 minutes and then we’re going to pick that up in just couple of minutes. Lisa Flynn: Well, and that is the beauty about our stainless cookware, it can go in the oven at high temperatures. Okay, we’ve just taken the chicken out of the oven, and now I see that we’ve got some “fond “that’s formed in the bottom of the pan Christopher Koetke: That’s right Lisa, this obvious little brown pieces here, this is called “fond” and that’s actually loaded with flavor and we’re going to use this to makeour sauce. So let’s start with some minced shallots, there we go, we’re going to put those right in there and go ahead and put in bits of sliced mushrooms, and what we’re going to do is as this sauté, the water inside the mushroom is going to start to come out and that is going to start to loosen up all these fond that those little browned pieces on the bottom of the sauté pan and also , you’d see that I’m scraping the bottom of the pan here, there we go, so that I’m loosening up all those little brown bits because again, that’s what the flavor is all about. So we’re just going to keep cooking that for a few minutes just until those mushrooms start to soften Lisa Flynn: And I noticed how you’re doing the flipping action, this is just a great pan to flip Christopher Koetke: Oh, this is perfect; anytime you have a sauté pan with those nice, rounded edges you can easily flip those around. Now we flip, see those mushrooms trying to soften? Now is the time to go ahead and put in the white wine, dump it, that’s perfect and what we’re going to tell you to the bottom of the pan, it’s completely clean and that is what we call de-glazing, which means that the liquid has basically dissolved all those little brown bits that fond off the bottom of the pan and you can see that the color of the liquid that started this has been white wine essentially, now it’s brown, that’s the flavor. So we’re going to let this just reduce for a little bit so I’ve got this on very high heat right now, we’re going to let that boil until the wine has almost completely disappeared, which will take just a couple of minutes here, especially since the pan is so high Lisa Flynn: Well and again, one of the key features of our stainless cook wares that it can really take high heat, high temperatures Christopher Koetke: This pan is so thick and it is so heavy, it definitely stands up the very high temperatures and you know, big temperature differences like that pan is very, very hot and you put in that liquid that was a big temperature difference that you saw when it hit the pan, and you know this pan has the heft to hold up to that. Alright, see how that wine has almost completely disappeared , there’s a tiny bit more and the next, we want to go in and put in that parsley and dump that minced up parsley and then put in some heavy cream, there we go, wonderful, the heavy cream is going to go in and the same idea as with the white wine, we’re just going to let that come to a boil and we’re going to allow that cream to reduce a little bit and as it reduces it’s going to thicken, we’re going to hit a little bit salt Lisa Flynn: Look and it’s just fascinating cause when we started, the pan was loaded with fond at the bottom, now it’s perfectly clean. Christopher Koetke: Well, you know, this is sort of you know, a double benefit so you have a great sauce and now you’ve also cleaned the pan at the same time, so it’s easy on first in doing dishes. Alright, just about there Lisa Flynn: And by the way, we’re making the recipe that’s on the use and care for this aid in sauté; it’s Sautéed Chicken with Mushroom sauce. Christopher Koetke: Ready, here we go, alright, put that right over the top of the chicken breast and look at that, now that is one fantastic dinner. Lisa Flynn: Okay Chris, now we’re featuring the (--) skillet with the recipe that can be finished up in the broiler. Christopher Koetke: That’s right Lisa, what we’ve done a little bit earlier is we sautéed chicken breasts until they’re completely cooked along with these potatoes right over here, then we took the potatoes out of the pan and we’ve mixed up a mixture of chopped up artichoke parts, canned artichoke parts with a little mayonnaise, parmesan and parsley and we spread theta right on top of those chicken breasts with a little extra parmesan on top and now the important part, leave the brown that off and we’re going to go ahead and put that in the broiler and this is one of the advantages of this cook ware is it can hold up to that heat that’s very intense in the broilers, so let’s put it under the broiler and we’ll see what happens. Lisa Flynn: Wow, these chicken breasts smell delicious and I particularly love the way that the top of the artichoke has really browned Christopher Koetke: Yeah, aren’t these great? You know, the high heat of the broiler is going to develop a color and the flavor of this dish, but also it smells just fantastic. Lisa Flynn: It does smell great. Well here we have artichoke chicken breasts with roasted potatoes, a recipe that’s featured in our 29 minutes to dinner cookbook. Lisa Flynn: Well Chris, now you’re going to teach and train on how to debone a chicken Christopher Koetke: That’s right, and it’s so easy to do. So the first thing we want to do is want to cut right between the leg and thigh and the breast, can you see the sort of fleshy piece of skin there very simply? Make one cut, one on the other side and then what we need to do is separate the leg and thigh from the rest of the chicken there’s a really easy way to do this, very simply if you put your finger on the back of the chicken, you’ll feel the joint where the thigh connects to the backbone and very simply you’re going to take and pull the weight back and out pops the leg bone, you can see it right there, just slice right between the carcass and that joint that’s sticking out, same on the other side; now a lot of times people want to cook the thigh and the drumsticks, separately, right? Not a great thing, but how do you separate the two? Well nature has provided a little dotted line if you will, and there’s a little line of that right there and if you just cut right on that line of fat very easily, it separates the leg and the thigh, so once again, look for that little line of fat right there and then just simply cut right on it, separates the leg and thigh that fast. So now on to the breast and the wings, and so to remove the breast very simply you feel right across the top of the chicken and you’ll feel the breast bones sticking up right there, and so I’m just going to take the knife and I’m going to cut right alongside the breast bone until I hit a bone, exactly, and that’s actually the rib cage and so very simply, I want to take the knife and I’m pressing against the rib cage as I’m cutting the chicken breast, in that way I’m sure not to leave any of the meat on the chicken when it’s all done. So I’m running into one other bone and you have actually these two little bones right at the end of the chicken here and that’s the wishbone, exactly and so once you hit that wishbone, that’s really a guide because I’m going to cut right along that wishbone and that will leave right into the joint where the wing, next to the rest of the chicken you can see right there. So I have this left over, this is perfect for stock or making chicken soup and then the last thing I’m going to do is to separate the wing from the breast and you can see that nice little joint sticking out there, all you have to do is cut right underneath it and now I have the wing and I have them breast. I can do a couple things with it, I can certainly cut off the end and maybe cut it for Buffalo wings or very simply I can just take this, fold back the wing just like that and it’s perfect for frying, deep frying, whatever, exactly. Lisa Flynn: Well you know what Chris; I think these are excellent ways to see the versatility of the knife. Christopher Koetke: you know, I couldn’t agree more; this is a very versatile knife.